In the oil and gas industry, the ability to accurately measure one or more characteristics associated with a fluid flow is desirable. For example, flowmeters are used to detect the rate/velocity of a fluid flow within a pipe/conduit. Referring to FIG. 1, a prior art system 100 for measuring a fluid flow 104 is shown. The system 100 includes an active SONAR-type flowmeter that includes a spatial array of at least two sensors (e.g., sensors 120a and 120b) disposed at different axial positions along a pipe 140. Each of the sensors 120a/120b includes a transmitter (TX) that transmits a respective signal 122a/122b through/across the pipe 140 and a receiver (RX) that provides a respective signal 126a/126b indicative of a characteristic of the flow 104 passing through the pipe 140. The signals 126a and 126b from the sensors 120a and 120b (e.g., from the respective receivers RX) are sent to a processor 150 where they are processed to determine the rate of the flow 104 passing within the pipe 140. A time domain to frequency domain transformation/translation, such as for example a Fourier-based transform (e.g., a Fast Fourier Transform [FFT]), is frequently implemented by the processor 150 in determining the rate of the flow 104 passing through the pipe 140.
In some instances, flowmeters are incapable of detecting flow rates. When the flow rate of a flow is too low (e.g., less than a threshold), high frequency bins associated with the FFT contain so much noise that the energy of the low frequency bins is overwhelmed. Additionally, when the flow rate of the flow is too high (e.g., greater than a threshold), low frequency bins associated with the FFT, which contain the actual low flow velocity energy, are omitted in the flow rate calculation by the processor 150. Under one or both of these circumstances, the flowmeter may fail to report a flow rate and/or the reported flow rate may be invalid/inaccurate.
In order to address the foregoing, a technician/operator of the flowmeter has to initialize the flowmeter with configuration parameters based on assumptions regarding the flow rate. For example, an assumption is made regarding whether the flow rate is generally high (e.g., greater than a threshold) or generally low (e.g., less than a threshold), and associated configuration parameters are selected for the flowmeter based on that assumption. The flowmeter uses these configuration parameters to provide for a proper initialization in terms of detecting the flow rate of the flow.
While the approach described above enables measurement of flows that are relatively constant (e.g., within a specified range of flow rates), there could be a failure/gap in terms of flow rate measurement if the flow rate is dynamic in nature. Moreover, the approach described above requires a high level of technician training/experience in order to properly operate the flowmeter. Accordingly, what is needed is a simplified approach to measuring flow rates, inclusive of flow rates that vary over a wide range in a dynamic manner/fashion.